Page 8 - 11 May 2012

CLONES
Should clones, and their offspring, be registered?
“As breeders, we are in pursuit of perfection, which means we’re supposed to be raising the bar, not duplicating it.”
by Stacy Pigott
We should have seen it coming. After the American Quarter Horse Association (AQHA) was forced to settle out of court on the issue of multiple embryos in 2002, many people asked, while shaking their head in dismay, “Multiple embryos...what’s next?” That question was answered on April 23, 2012, when Texas horseman Jason Abraham and two of his related companies, Abraham & Veneklasen Joint Venture and Abraham Equine Inc., filed suit against the AQHA claiming that a rule prohibiting the registration of cloned horses and their offspring violates antitrust laws.
Federal antitrust laws prohibit monopolies or anti- competitive activities on the part of corporations and other entities. The AQHA Rule in question is 227(a), which went into effect in 2004 and states: “(a) Horses produced by any cloning process are not eligible for registration. Cloning is defined as any method by which the genetic material of an unfertilized egg or any embryo is removed and replaced by genetic material taken from another organism, added to/with genetic material from another organism or otherwise modified by any means in order to produce a live foal.”
Back in 2002, a judge ruled twice that AQHA’s rule restricting the registration of multiple foals from one mare in the same year was, in fact, a violation
of antitrust laws. Although that judge never ordered AQHA to change the rule, the Association settled out of court to avoid steep financial repercussions that could have reportedly resulted in the payment of upwards of $10 million in damages.
Abraham and business partner Gregg Veneklasen, a veterinarian from Amarillo, Texas, own an undisclosed number of clones as well as offspring from those clones. Their lawsuit states: “Without exception, DNA tests confirm that the plaintiffs’ horses are quarter horses. But for Rule 227 and the defendant’s unlawful enforce- ment of it, the horses that plaintiffs seek to register would be eligible for registration with the (AQHA).”
From a layman’s point of view, it’s easy to compare the two lawsuits. AQHA member alleges AQHA rule is in violation of antitrust laws...judge agrees...rule gets changed. While that is an overly-simplified ver- sion of the legal process, it’s not hard to imagine that the cloning lawsuit will follow a similar storyline. It would appear a precedent has already been set.
I was not in favor of the rule change that allowed for the registration of multiple foals in one year, and I am not in favor of any rule change that allows for the
registration of clones. But what I read next really sent chills down my spine.
The lawsuit continued: “There is no genetic manipu- lation of the animal. No genes are added, taken away or manipulated. A clone is a genetic twin of the original animal. The offspring of clones are not clones.”
Read that last sentence again. “The offspring of clones are not clones.” No, they aren’t. But what, exactly, are they? In my mind, they are a step back- wards in the evolution of the breed. One breeder
put it this way: “The way I see it, clone=genetically identical. As breeders, we are in pursuit of perfection, which means we’re supposed to be raising the bar, not duplicating it. To clone is to say I’ve achieved perfec- tion, and there’s no need to go further. NOT!”
I couldn’t agree more. Shouldn’t the whole pur- pose of breeding animals be to improve the breed and better the species? Are we really doing ourselves any favors by producing clones?
Recent AQHA Hall of Fame inductee and reining great Bob Loomis is reported to have said, “I want to breed a horse that is better, not as good as, the last one.”
By cloning individuals to breed, we are stop-
ping genetic progress in its tracks. The water really becomes murky when you add in the fact that our current parentage verification testing processes can- not differentiate between the offspring of a stallion or mare and the offspring of their clones.
Proponents of cloning—of which there are few according to an AQHA poll—call cloning the next step in a natural progression of breeding technologies that, in the past, have included artificial insemina- tion, cooled semen, shipped semen, embryo transfer and Intracytoplasmic Sperm Injection (ICSI). Maybe so, but it seems to be that all of the above listed repro- ductive technologies have a life span—the frozen eggs from the dead mare or the frozen semen from the dead stallion will, eventually, run out. With cloning, the exact same genetics can continue, unabated and unchanged, for as long as anyone sees fit.
In the end, of course, it’s all about money. People are cloning to make money; AQHA may be forced to settle again to avoid losing money. It’s a sad day when AQHA is forced to go to court to defend its Mission Statement: “To record and preserve the pedigrees of the American Quarter Horse while maintaining the integrity of the breed.” (Emphasis added by me.)
It’s happened before, and it’s happening again. I, for one, hope the AQHA finds a way to win this one.
6
SPEEDHORSE, May 11, 2012
UNDER WRAPS